Eyes: For TGTSNBN Twisting Tales Challenge
by Stacy Galore
Summary: When grey eyes and green eyes meet, the fire created can consume.


Twisting Tales Challenge, TGTSNBN

Diagon Alley

By Stacy Galore

Hiding one's excitement shouldn't require so much effort. But when you're a boy of eleven, and you are on the verge of your first year away at Hogwarts, it becomes exceedingly difficult. Why would a child even consider containing his eagerness? Though his small stature and slight figure should suggest that he was a child, this boy was most certainly not a child – not according to his father. This boy was a young man, and the public face of a very prestigious family. He would have to rise above the juvenile frivolity in order to inhabit the familial image of regality and superiority, here in this most public stage of the wizarding world, Diagon Alley. This meant that he not only had to act the part, he had to look the part. New, hand-made robes were in order.

It was here, in Madame Malkin's robes shop that the boy found it most difficult to conceal his excitement, not in the wand shop nor in the broom shop as would be expected. Here, amongst fine fabrics that flowed in richly colored rivers of silk and brocade, the boy had to stifle peals of glee. Here, he felt like a prince, as the tailor draped a smooth, buttery, raven-colored cloth over his body and kneeled at his feet to pin the hem. The boy marveled at his own beauty in the mirror – it should be a crime to look so perfect. He permitted the slightest smile to crease his taught, thin lips.

The little bell above the door jingled, announcing the arrival of a new customer. The boy hadn't paid any mind to the other people in the shop, except to hazard an occasional glance to ensure they were all looking upon him approvingly. In the mirror, he was startled by a pair of striking emerald green eyes belonging to the boy who just walked into the shop. These eyes were flitting about erratically, taking in the most banal sights with fascination as if he were on an alien planet. When the green eyes fell upon him, it sent a jolt up his spine, eliciting an unfamiliar sensation that was both exhilarating and unnerving. The other boy ruffled his unruly, dark hair in a nervous gesture, appearing rather out of his element, revealing a conspicuous lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. The hair on the back of the young man's neck stood on end with the thrill of recognition. He didn't know this other boy, but he knew exactly who he was.

Harry Potter was not at all what he'd expected. He looked too common to be the savior of the wizarding world. He was frail-looking and horribly dressed in oversized muggle attire. He wore the most awful pair of spectacles, held together with what must have been sticky tape. His posture, shoulders bent slightly forward, gave him the appearance of being vulnerable and anything but the confident, miraculous wonder-boy he was made out to be. Madam Malkin ushered Harry Potter to the footstool next to the one the boy was standing on and his heart began to race, but his cool exterior never gave away his feelings of anticipation.

"Hello," said the boy in a casual tone, artfully concealing the excitement of speaking to one of the most famous wizards ever. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Harry Potter.

The two stood silently as the witches pinned up their robes. The boy could sense an electric tension between them. Despite the fact that Harry was not looking directly at him and was instead blankly surveying a non-descript point, the boy could not stop gazing at the pair of green eyes that were reflected in the mirror before him. Though their owner looked rather plain and unassuming, these eyes were hauntingly compelling and expressive of the soul to which it must have been deeply connected – the kind of eyes that scorch when they glance and consume when they stare. The boy yearned to know what thoughts lay hidden behind those eyes, what horrible and fantastic things they had seen. Most of all, he wanted those eyes to meet his own favorably.

He attempted to strike up a conversation, hoping to draw more than a one-word answer out of Harry Potter. "My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," he said with a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow." He bit his bottom lip, realizing he'd just spoken way more than he should have and probably seemed overly eager to converse. When Harry didn't answer, the boy knew he had indeed been too overwhelming in his enthusiasm to talk with him. It was best if he stuck to simple questions. "Have _you_ got your own broom?" he inquired.

"No," said Harry plainly.

"Play Quidditch at all?" he asked.

"No," Harry said again. His single-word answers were making the boy feel like Harry didn't want to talk to him, as if he weren't good enough.

"_I_ do," the boy said, "Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree." He felt the need to impress Harry, though he didn't quite know why. The boy was impressive regardless and rarely needed to do anything in order to get people to take notice of his impressiveness.

Still, Harry was unmoved and said nothing, probably rather bored with the boy. He had to find something to talk about that was interesting. He rarely ever had a conversation in which the other person wasn't completely rapt. It was maddening how Harry hardly acknowledged his presence, no less, the fact that he was talking to him. "Know what house you'll be in yet?"

And again, Harry simply said, "No."

The boy felt so stupid for asking such a ridiculous question. Of course he didn't know. His pale cheeks tinged a slight pink. "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said Harry.

That was it. He was officially boring Harry Potter to tears. This was utterly embarrassing and unacceptable. Then something dark and bear-like appeared in the window brandishing two ice-cream cones as if it were going to assault someone with them. "I say, look at that man!"

"That's Hagrid," said Harry, sounding pleased at the vulgar sight.

"Oh, I've heard of him," he said, once again trying to impress Harry. "He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry.

Finally, something to talk about, upon which they could see eye-to-eye! "Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of _savage_ – lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed." The boy knew such scandalous things would certainly rouse Harry.

But he didn't laugh as the boy thought he should have. He didn't even crack a smile. Instead, Harry said coldly, "I think he's brilliant," and stared daggers at the boy indirectly via the mirror, causing a warm surge of adrenaline to course through the boy's veins. The fact that he was getting some sort of rise out of Harry, however contrary, was unexpectedly pleasing.

"_Do_ you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer, meeting the other boy's stare in the reflection with his own grey eyes. He must have been mistaken. Unless he was being facetious, this was not Harry Potter. This was just some common street rat that co-mingled with riff raff. This _could not_ be Harry Potter, celebrity boy wizard extraordinaire, perfectly matched nemesis of his revered Dark Lord. Someone of such high caliber as Harry Potter wouldn't be caught dead with the likes of societal pond scum such as the hired help of Hogwarts. The boy probed, "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," said Harry shortly.

"Oh, sorry," said the boy, not sounding sorry at all. He queried on, keeping his investigation hidden beneath a nonchalant tone. "But they were _our_ kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean," Harry answered curtly. There was a furious sparkle gathering in Harry's green eyes and the notion that _he_ was the source of that flame was quite exhilarating.

Something about the defensive rise in Harry's tone of voice fueled the boy's need to emphatically declare his own views. "I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same; they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families."

The green-eyed boy said nothing. Perhaps this _was_ the real Harry Potter, and he was exactly like his blood-traitor parents. What an awful, bloody shame. "What's your surname, anyway?" the boy asked.

But before he could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry hopped down from the footstool, without so much as a glance or a nod at the boy.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," he drawled. Or in hell, he mused to himself.


End file.
